In a distributed computing system having a content management system including a data repository, users (through client devices) establish sessions with the content management system in order to access the data repository for read and/or write operations. However, in systems where concurrent access to data resources is allowed, data errors can occur unless access by concurrent users to shared resources is controlled. For example, where one user is writing to the shared resource and another user is reading from the same shared resource, the state of the resource is in flux, and read access may be incomplete or inaccurate.
One prior solution for multiple users seeking access to a shared resource is to immediately block access to the data and then serialize the requests so that they are handled one at a time in the order received. While effective, this scheme can impact performance and potentially lead to deadlock or livelock in data operations.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a mechanism to allow concurrent access while still providing protection for the integrity of the data.